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Denis Dutton on Cross-Cultural Aesthetics, Forgery, and Performance
- Philosophy and Literature
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 38, Number 1A, October 2014
- pp. A41-A47
- 10.1353/phl.2014.0026
- Article
- Additional Information
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I examine three themes central to Denis Dutton’s philosophy of art. To understand the artworks of non-Western cultures, we must understand how to identify what artistic category these works in fact belong to. Though the perceived properties of a work of art do not seem to change when it is revealed to be a forgery, there is a reason why forgeries are “artistic crimes.” In both cases, a “work of art” is not simply the object produced (the painting, for example), but rather the contextualized performance undertaken by the artist that brings about the finished product.